CHATHAM ­— Thornton Wilder’s 1938 Pulitzer-winning drama “Our Town” has endured as an American classic, and the enjoyable co-production by Walking the dog Theater and PS/21 shows why. The story about small-town life in the fictional Grover’s Corners, N.H., unfolds in three acts: “Daily Life,” “Love and Marriage” and “Death and Eternity.” Presented in early […]
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by Michael Eck Sepcial to The Times Union WILLIAMSTOWN, MASS. – “Oh, Thespis, we place ourselves in your hands.” And so it begins, both a play and a season. Williamstown Theatre Festival is opening its 2010 mainstage slate with a tribute of sorts to Williams College graduate Stephen Sondheim, who turned 80 in March. Jessica […]
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by Michael Eck Special to The Times Union STOCKBRIDGE, MASS. – It’s no big surprise that Cathy Hiatt looks a little bit the loser by the end of Jason Robert Brown’s one-act musical “The Last Five Years.” Hyatt, the fictional wife in the show, is based on Brown’s actual ex-wife, who threatened to sue him […]
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by Michael Eck Special to The Times Union GLENS FALLS – It’s becoming a trend, plays about movies that is. More specifically, plays about the making of movies. It would feel like a meta-trend if the plays themselves weren’t so slavish to legend. “What a Glorious Feeling” is the latest entry in a field that […]
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by Michael Eck Special to The Times Union PITTSFIELD, MASS. – Theaters all across the country are celebrating Stephen Sondheim’s 80th birthday this year by programming works from his considerable canon. He couldn’t hope for a better tribute than Julianne Boyd’s season-opening Mainstage production of “Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street” at Barrington […]
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Special to the Times Union by Tresca Weinstein NORTH ADAMS, Mass. – It takes a unique creative mind to recognize the makings of a powerful and moving puppet show within the story of Mike Disfarmer, the eccentric Arkansas photographer and hermit who died in 1959 after spending most of his life taking pictures of his […]
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By STEVE BARNES Senior writer GLENS FALLS – “Ordinary Days” is a charming little musical, exactly the sort of work that audiences have come to expect and enjoy at the Adirondack Theatre Festival, celebrating its 15th season this summer. A breezy, 75-minute contemporary fairy tale about a quartet of New Yorkers whose lives are altered […]
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By Michael Eck Special to the Times Union ALBANY — It’s very difficult to review “Shear Madness.” To begin with, every critic worth his or her salt will tell you that every live performance is an entity unto itself. Each night of a show’s run will be different. But each night of “Shear Madness” is […]
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